Home For Christmas

This post is a little late but is too important to our family to not share…

After 6 months of counting down, on December 17th Skye arrived home from Afghanistan for 2 weeks of R & R. His daughter Kayleigh and mom Michelle flew in the night before from Georgia and California for his homecoming. It took almost 4 days for him to make the long flight home and time seemed to stand still for all of us waiting at SeaTac for his plane to land. 

Love this picture of Kayleigh pressed up against the airport window watching her Daddy's plane taxi in

Waiting patiently at the gate for him 

My sister Taryn took this video for us to capture the first moment we saw him getting off the plane. I will never forget watching Kayleigh run into her Daddy's arms. Those first few moments were so precious and indescribable!

I had been envisioning this day since the day he left 6 months ago and when it finally came it was so intense, emotional, amazing and all about our family being together again!

We were so lucky that his R & R dates brought him home for Christmas. Of course everyday is difficult for him to be away from us but Christmas would have been by far the hardest day. Skye's parents and daughter spent the holidays up in Washington and it was our first holiday all together as a family.

We spent 3 days up in Whistler and it snowed almost 2 feet while we were there. Kayleigh spent a lot of time out in the snow playing and sledding with her Daddy. The village was absolutely beautiful covered with fresh snow...a true winter wonderland!

Skye and I stayed up late on Christmas Eve putting the finishing touches on the last of Kayleigh's gifts. Christmas becomes so much more special when you have a child in your life to share it with.

We were so excited to finally be together to get some wedding planning done. Amazingly the weather cooperated for us to take our engagement pictures with Kayleigh. Dan Deward and his lovely wife Tracey from Hatch Photography spent the day with us at Semiahmoo and up at Mt Baker. The snow was falling ever so gently during our session up at the mountain and Dan captured our day perfectly. The pictures turned out more amazing than I could have ever could have imagined. 

I still have no idea how all the military families do it. I can't believe I am so close to being a military wife. I definitely do not even come close to understanding what lies behind all heartache and trials we experience, but I think I have at least a teensy bit of a clue. I am awed by out nation's military families. They are heroes. All of them.

I am grateful there are brave and honorable men and women in this country who are willing to sacrifice so much for us. I am thankful for the families of those soldiers who support and love them even though it breaks them down in so many ways to do so. God bless them all. And I am honored to soon call one of those brave men my husband.  

The 2 weeks came and went so fast and all of a sudden it was time to say goodbye again. For the next 6 months again our relationship will consist of carepackages, emails, Skype dates when possible and constantly static-y phone calls. As hard as it was to let him go again I am so grateful that this is the last goodbye we will ever have to go through because when he gets back in June he is getting out of military. We appreciate all of you that are continuing to pray for Skye and the entire 170th MP Company. I choose to avoid the news these days but as many of you know things continue to be extremely dangerous in Afghanistan. Please pray for their continued strength and for a safe return home to their families this summer.